


I, Emma Take Thee Killian

by goddesswan



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Enchanted Forest, Captain Duckling, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-21
Updated: 2017-04-21
Packaged: 2018-10-22 06:18:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10691460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goddesswan/pseuds/goddesswan
Summary: An EF AU very loosely based off the infamous "I, Ross take thee Rachel" scene.





	I, Emma Take Thee Killian

The Charming family has finally defeated the Evil Queen. After years of torment and suffering, they’ve vanquished her for good—banished her to a far off land, that she’ll be unable to return from. All it took was the help of Rumpelstiltskin. The man who had previously been unwilling to aid them against Regina had finally found something worth his interest or, to be precise, his son’s interest.

Emma met Neal when she was 17.

She had been preparing to take her horse out for a ride when she saw movement in her peripheral vision, a blur running through the forest. Grabbing a sword, she headed after whatever she had spotted to discover a young man hiding in the trees.

He told her his name was Neal and that he was hiding from his father. He didn’t ask her for help but she had been raised by, whom she is sure to be, the most compassionate rulers to ever live and she had learned to spot a soul in need. So she offered him food, promised to keep his secret, and began to spend time with him.

After weeks of meeting in the forest near her home, he told her more about himself. That his real name was Baelfire and his father The Dark One. That he spent hundreds of years in Neverland after his father essentially abandoned him through a portal. That he’d spent some time after that aging in a land without magic until, only near a fortnight before she found him, he’d returned to this realm.

She felt for him, having been abandoned by both of his parents. She couldn’t imagine the pain one must feel to grow up like that—alone, unloved, and lacking guidance. Her parents had always been the most loving and supportive a girl could ask for but she knew there was a time when that almost didn’t happen.

When she was 10 and Regina was in a particularly vindictive mood—wreaking her special form of havoc—her parents told her about the dark curse that she had intended to cast and how Emma was nearly separated from them at birth. Luckily for them, the curse failed and aside from some minor Regina induced hiccups, they had been together and happy ever since.

She was content with her life as the daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming. But aside from the perpetual threat of the Evil Queen looming over them, her days lacked excitement. Her parents rarely allowed her to travel along with them on diplomatic missions, for fear of Regina’s henchmen attacking. The only action she participated in was sparring with her trainers and her father and the occasional tracking, simply for fun, with her mother. Sneaking out of the castle was nothing new to Emma.

No, the thrill of that had long ago worn off. Sneaking out to meet a man though, and not just any man but the son of The Dark One, was exhilarating. She was young and naive; he was handsome and so very charming. Being with him was electrifying.

They spent a lot of time together, hiding amongst the trees. He would regale her with tales of different times and far off lands, of ogre wars and boys that never aged. Although he always tried to put a light spin on his past, she could feel the bitterness hidden behind his captivating words.

Looking back on it, it was the pain that really endeared her to him. And it was the pain that drove them apart.

Things went south when he began to suspect his father knew of his whereabouts. He asked Emma to help him procure an item from the castle that he could use in trade of a magic bean. He claimed to know a person from his childhood that would be willing to give up anything for a vial of squid ink.

He begged her to help him so they could run away together—find happiness in another land, far out of reach of his father.

It might have been tempting, the promise of adventure and freedom if it didn’t mean giving up her family. The thought of leaving behind her parents and kingdom—people who loved and supported her, people she had a duty to protect and serve—was unimaginable and the thought of betraying them even worse.

Neal didn’t understand her resistance, only associating parents with heartache and betrayal, he couldn’t understand the loyalty she felt. Because he couldn’t understand her reasoning, couldn’t understand her, their relationship ended in a blowout of epic proportions leaving her with a bruised heart and a distrustful mind.

Time moved on and she put the past and their romance behind her. She grew older and gained insight on their relationship that could only come with age. She realized how much older he had been than her and how wrong that had been at such a juvenile stage of her life. She came to see just how unfair, how irreverent he had been to ask what he did of her, knowing he was the first man she had ever been with and how easily susceptible she was to the lure of the unknown.

She moved on and she managed to keep him from her mind for years. Once her heart was sufficiently mended and her walls built high, she allowed herself zero thoughts of the man.

Until he reconciled with his father.

Everyone in the Enchanted Forrest heard the news of the harmony that had been reached between Rumpelstiltskin and his estranged son. Her mother and father, none the wiser to the liaison that occurred between Neal and herself, celebrated. Being sympathetic people and knowing it could have been them who lost a great deal of time with their child, they were happy for the father and son.

That was until Rumpelstiltskin called upon them, requesting a favor and offering to ensure the safety of their kingdom, a liberation they had been seeking since a time before she was conceived. He promised to aid them with one simple thing in return, that Emma marry his son.

Her parents repudiated the proposition, not wanting to force their daughter into what they imagined to be a loveless marriage. They were Snow White and Prince Charming, their true love the stuff of legends. Who were they to deny their daughter the freedom of obtaining a spectacular love of her own?

Emma was utterly grateful for her them in that moment, regarding them in the highest esteem for their selflessness and bravery. She loved them and admired them and she wanted to be like them. And that was why, knowing how long they’d fought and how weary they must have grown trying to keep their kingdom safe, never fully at peace, she accepted the offer.

The reptilian man had been giddy, promising to get the affair in order as soon as possible and then disappeared in a cloud of smoke.

That was what lead her to where she is today, walking down the aisle on her father’s arm, to a man she does not love, a man she no longer even particularly likes. But with the comfort of knowing that her kingdom is safe and no longer under the thumb of the threat of Regina.

Neal smiles at her softly, eyes glittering brightly in a way that used to fill her stomach with butterflies but now makes it churn with dread.

When her father kisses her hand and puts it in Neal’s she feels tears well in her eyes (and oh, they’re not the tears she expected on her wedding day) but she grits her teeth and wills them away, refusing to let the emotions overcome her for fear that she’ll never recover. Her lips quiver and she sets them firmly in what she hopes passes for a grin.

She feels her resolve settle in place as the officiant begins speaking and she’s sure she’ll get through this. She nods along to the words and smiles in the appropriate places and she’s almost there.

But then he slips through the doors at the end of the hall and walks calmly to the back of the seats. That mad, mad fool. She could just throttle him. How willfully ignorant he must be to walk into the wedding of the son of the man who will rip out his heart and gleefully crush it on sight.

She wants to kill him herself for the lack of regard he shows for his own life.

“I’m a survivor, love,” he’d once told her, a resplendent smile on his face. Well, buddy, you’re doing a piss-poor job of showing it.

She tries to put her focus back into the ceremony taking place, to keep the attention of the crowd off the asinine pirate that just arrived. She attempts to concentrate if not on Neal, then the officiant. She really does try.

But her mind has been spun into a whorl, rivaling the vortex of a portal upon water, and all she can think about his him. Unbidden, their past and what could have been their future flashes before her eyes.

The day they met, not even a year to the date, she was reading peacefully in the castle’s private library when suddenly a figure came tumbling, none too elegantly, through one of the arched, stained glass windows. She was alone and unarmed, in a tower far from any hearing ears.

As she prepared to run, he righted himself and—expecting an immediate threat, likely with the hook attached to his arm—surprised her by simply taking a step back, brushing his dark hair out of his vision, and muttering “Bloody, hell,” eyes wide and brows nearly in his hairline.

“Whatever you want,” she said haughtily, lifting her shoulders and tilting her chin up, “I’m sure could be achieved without breaking through the window.”

“Ah,” he’d sighed, scratching behind his ear in a way entirely too endearing for a pirate who had just forced his way into the walls of the royal family. “That might work if I were a man of your lands and better yet if I weren’t the captain of a notorious pirate ship.”

“Have you been accused of piratery by our kingdom before?”

He paused, narrowing his, unfortunately, (for her) startling blue eyes and rubbing his stubbled chin.

“No, actually.”

“Well then, if you had only been more familiar with the laws of my kingdom,” she scolded with crossed arms and if he hadn’t come to the realization of who she was before, he had at that point “you would have known that we harbor no ill will towards pirates who have not… conducted their business in this land.”

He smirked slowly eyeing her up in down in a way entirely to indecent for anyone regarding the crown princess of Misthaven and drew her attention to the fact that the way her arms crossed put her chest on full display for his lascivious gaze. She pulled her arms down instead, putting her hands in a stern position on her hips.

“I see. I guess I’ll be on my way out the window and trying my luck through the front doors. That is if you’d be so kind as to let this indiscretion slide.”

She shouldn’t have, let it slide that is, but it was immensely refreshing to be spoken to with a lack of utmost respect. No one dared to address her without an abundance of reverence and it grew tiresome to be treated as an object held high up on a pedestal, out of reach of anyone below.

So she let him go on his way with the assumption that he would either get what he wanted or not but would most certainly leave, never to be seen again. How wrong she had been. And how grateful she was to have been wrong.

Her parents agreed to give him the squid ink he requested but not without something in return. She had thought her parents foolish to give him his half before securing theirs but they showed to her to never doubt their excellent judge of character. Apparently, there truly is honor among thieves, at least this particular thief, because he remained in their employ, given free reign of travel as long as he obtained something for them in return, after receiving the object of his desire.

Being in their employ lead to him being around her. Being around her lead to lead to him charming her. And charming her lead to him bedding her.

All of this done despite her attempts to keep him from doing just that. He had simply just been too much for her to keep at bay. Too handsome, too smart, too charismatic, too amusing, too passionate. The list goes on and on with too many too’s. The pirate captivated her with his sinfully good looks and piercing blue eyes, he enchanted her with his wit and spirit.

The first night he’d slipped into her room—as she laid beneath the covers staring up at her ceiling and imagining she was gazing upon the stars in the sky, from aboard the deck of The Jolly Roger—she’d been utterly helpless to do anything but draw him into her bed, strip him bare, and ride him into oblivion.

After that first, wild night of unbridled passion, they began an illicit love affair that started out as simple lust and mind-numbing pleasure but soon turned into feelings stronger than anything she’d ever felt before.

They spent as many nights as they could together. Some nights he would sneak through the window of her room and they’d roll around in her bed for hours on end. Other nights she would slip out of the castle to the Jolly where they spent more time on the deck than in his cabin, laying on the cool wood as he pointed out his favorite constellations and entertained her with the legends behind him. 

He told her that the set of stars that aligned to create the Cygnus were his favorite. He said it was the most magnificent thing he’d ever seen, that was until he met her. On nights when he was in a deeply amorous mood, he would call her his swan, tell her that there must have been a marvelous constellation that disappeared from the sky on the night of her birth because she was made up of the most brilliant stars.

She planned on hiding it from her parents, knowing her father would threaten him bodily harm and that her mother would actually follow through on it. She was fine keeping it a secret, preferring a love that she could have in the dark of night than one to mourn. She thought she would never tell another soul until, after a particularly gratifying session of face riding on the deck of his ship, he’d turned to her with metaphorical and literal stars in his eyes and said the three little words that brought her walls crashing down to be left in ruins at her feet.

The oddest thing, odder than the princess and her steadfast resistance of any emotional ties dallying with the 300 year old, vengeance bound pirate, was that she believed him. She felt his love in the air around them and with the glow of his eyes and the press of his warm skin against hers.

She couldn’t recall ever feeling so blissfully happy, so content, anywhere with any other person. She vowed to tell her parents after that. Damn the consequences. If they wanted him, they’d have to go through her first because she wasn’t giving him up.

She waited for the perfect moment to tell them but before it arrived, Rumpelstiltskin did, and she made the promise to protect her kingdom at the sake of her own heart.

She knew of his history with the crocodile and the love he’d lost to the imp before. She knew how long he’d fought to avenge his Milah. But she was still surprised by the force of his anger, never having seen anything so strong until she found him in his cabin and told him what she agreed to do. It was equally startling and arousing the way his eyes flamed and his lips curled. She chuckled bitterly against the sour taste of bile rising in her throat when she realized he was the man Neal had spoke of so long ago, the man who was willing to trade a magic bean for squid’s ink, thinking if only she’d met hims sooner.

The argument they’d had was so intense she was amazed they didn’t sink the ship with the force of it. It started off with shouting and throwing things, lasting so long her throat was raw for days, but eventually turned into something much worse, him begging.

She couldn’t bare the pain and fear in his eyes. She couldn’t listen to the way he pleaded with her, that he couldn’t lose her, couldn’t stand for her to live a life of misery under the control of The Dark One and with the man who had betrayed and hurt her before. When he dropped to his knees before her, she lost her resolve and took him to bed.

The love they’d made that night was just that, love, pure and abundant. She laid with him afterward, tucked against his chest and breathing him in, filling her lungs with his scent and her heart with the feel of him. She watched him as he fell asleep quickly. It had always been easy for him to pass into the realm of dreams (something she envied) and that night he had been beyond exhausted, emotionally and physically. She stayed a little longer after his eyes fluttered shut and stayed closed, needing every moment she could take to imprint him and what she felt with him into her very soul.

She couldn’t allow herself to stay long though and careful not to wake him, she detached herself from his embrace to write him a note. She folded it, pressed a kiss against the paper, and then left, not letting herself look back at his sleeping form for fear that she wouldn’t be able to leave.

He’d followed her wishes, or so she thought, to let her go and not seek her out. Yet here he is, in the middle of the damn wedding, sitting casually at the back of the room.

How dare he? How dare he make it that much harder for her to vow her commitment to a man she didn’t want, a man so different from him?

Indignant, she turns her eyes back to the man speaking to the room and before she knows it, Neal is speaking “I, Baelfire take thee Emma to be my wedded wife” and slipping a lavish gold ring on her finger.

The officiant begins speaking to her and she knows what she has to say.

“I, Emma take thee Killian—” and dear god, no, that was not what she was supposed to say. She feels her stomach drop and her limbs turn cold because how had she possibly said the wrong thing? But she knows how, or at least some part of her does, because she said it.

Chaos erupts in the great hall, voices blending together, growing louder by the second. She spots her parents, sitting wide eyed and mouths open, looking aghast. Rumple appears suddenly before her, holding her by the arms and shaking her so forcefully she thinks for sure her head will snap off, demanding “Why did you speak that name? How do you know it?” He searches frantically about the room but doesn’t seem to spot Killian standing halfway down the aisle.

She feels dizzy and ill and thinks she could possibly pass out until Neal steps between her and his father, stopping him from harming her any further.

“I need to speak with Emma alone, papa,” he pleads softly and Rumple’s wild eyes begin to calm.

“The wedding is over. You may all leave,” the manic man announces before disappearing from the room.

Neal grabs her gently by the arm, steering her out of the room. She see’s her mother holding her father back from following. Once alone, he begins running his palms up and down her bare skin and she comprehends that she’s shaking.

“Stop, now,” he commands calmly. “The Emma I know wouldn’t be shaking like this.”

“The Emma you know was a 17-year-old girl. You don’t know the Emma I am,” she snaps, hating to be ordered to do anything by anyone other than her parents, least of all this man. But, probably not in the way he hopes, it works. Her anger flares and her limbs settle.

“That’s true. Apparently, I know you even less than I thought because the version of you I know would sooner slit her wrists than take up with a pirate.”

His words don’t sound harsh, just resigned. He knew whom the name she spoke belonged to.

“That is entirely your fault. You left before I grew old enough for you to know a mature me and when you returned you didn’t bother to try and know me again. You simply had you father force me into marriage.”

“Technically he didn’t force you,” he begins but stops in his tracks at her icy glare. “Alright. I knew you wouldn’t be able to turn down his offer. If I did learn one thing about you, it’s that you would do anything for your kingdom.”

“You forced my hand.”

“I did,” he concedes.

“How did you expect a marriage to work between us that was created this way?”

“I don’t know, Emma… I didn’t think. I just knew that you were the only woman I ever loved and that I missed you. I regretted what happened between us the moment I left. I didn’t just return for my father, I returned for you. I didn’t even willingly tell my father about you. He sensed my dismay and used a truth potion to get it out of me. When he learned, he concocted the plan. He set it in motion.”

“I was a child, Neal.” He winces. “You loved a child. And if what you say is true, that you still care about me, you wouldn’t have put me in this position before even trying to learn how I feel.”

He nods slowly and then glances helplessly around the room, running his hands over his head.

“I fucked up.”

“You did.”

“Do you love him?”

He doesn’t need to specify who he is asking about.

“I do.”

“And does he love you? Does he really love you?”

“He does.”

“If I really loved you like I said, I would let you be with him wouldn’t I?”

She doesn’t speak but he’s smart enough to obtain the answer on his own.

“I—I’m sorry, Emma.”

She softens, feeling something loosen in her chest that she hadn’t realized had been tight all these years because she understands that the apology isn’t just for the wedding.

“I’ll convince my father to let it go and not to harm him. Gods, it will be difficult but I’ll do it.”

She’s tempted to tell him that she doesn’t care how difficult it will be for him but she holds her tongue.

“Thank you,” she sighs and presses a fleeting kiss to his cheek before leaving in search of Killian, hearing Neal call for his father to magic him away.

She finds him leaning against the wall outside the room she and Neal had been talking in and he opens his mouth to say something, but she doesn’t find out what because before he can, she launches herself at him, latching her lips onto his.

He kisses her back greedily, nothing but wetness and battling tongues and clashing of teeth. His hands roam all over her, unable to pick one place to settle. After a while, the kiss slows and eventually he pulls back to gaze at her in wonderment.

“You recognized me,” he says pupils blown wide and a breathtaking grin on his face.

“Of course I did. It’s only been a few days.”

“No you don’t understand,” he explains running his hands up and down her arms and the sensation is so different from the way Neal had been doing it only moments before. “I’m wearing a protective charm that hides my appearance.”

“From everyone?” she asks, puzzled as to how she sees him as him.

“Yes, it changes the appearance to everyone… except those the wearer shares true love with.”

She comprehends now, his excitement and awe at her recognizing him.

“Oh,” she says simply.

He kisses her again, joyously. Then he moves his mouth all over her face, peppering it with kisses only interrupted by his repeated words of “I love you.”

She’s dizzy again, not for the first time today but the first time for a good reason. She stops the assault of his lips by grabbing his face between her hands. She looks him in the eyes and says, “I love you, too.”

“Well, clearly, love or you wouldn’t even know who I am right now. I’d just be some mad stranger attacking you with kisses.”

She’s overwhelmed with elation, having thought she would never experience his humor again and instead of commenting back she kisses him once more.

When they get their fill of each other—or at least enough to hold them off til they can speak with her parents—and break apart she remembers something she’d thought of when he first walked in on the wedding.

“Oh, thank the gods, you fool.” She smacks him on the chest with the hand not clutched in his own.

“What?”

“I’d thought you’d walked in with the risk of Rumpelstiltskin seeing you.”

“No, love, I hadn’t intended for anyone to see me,” he stops their walking and pulls his hand from hers to run it through her hair, reverently. “I just couldn’t bare to let you go without seeing for certain, with my own two eyes that you wouldn’t be mine.”

How could a pirate be so romantic?

“If you saw, would you have let me go?”

“No.”

“No?”

He shakes his head and gives her a rueful grin.

“A man unwilling to fight for what he wants deserves what he gets,” he intones.

“I’m what you want?”

“Aye.”

In the end, it takes a lot less convincing of her parents than she thought it would. They had just been so happy for their daughter to find true love they couldn’t be bothered much to care who with.

“Maybe you’ll grow on me,” her father mused, looking like that’s the last thing that would happen.

Their engagement is short (not as short and her one with Neal but that was hastened by Rumple) lasting only a couple months, and only that long so her mother can plan a wedding she deems appropriate.

By the time her father walks her down the aisle, again, her pirate has grown on him.

It’s the strangest feeling, doing a wedding a second time but with entirely different circumstances. The feeling of dread and nausea she felt before, is replaced with excitement and elation. When her father goes to hand her off, she practically jumps out of his arms, to Killian.

She can feel the wild grin splitting her cheeks and the moisture welling in her eyes, good tears this time, wonderful tears, but like before she tries to keep them at bay. When she meets Killian’s eyes, he’s looking at her as if she hung the moon in the sky and he gives her a wink.

She feels incredibly impatient. The officiant can’t talk fast enough for her. She just wants the ceremony to be over so she can be married to her damn pirate already. So she can take him back to his ship.

When Killian slips a simple gold ring on her right hand, it feels so right to look into her true loves eyes and be able to rightfully say, “I, Emma take thee Killian.”


End file.
